


Dancing Around on my Mind Every Second

by Electric-amp (Ohmygodnighttroll), Ohmygodnighttroll



Category: Anne of Green Gables (TV 1985) & Related Fandoms, Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery, Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: 3.4k of nonsense, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe- Modern, But Anne's here for it, Drunk Dialing, Drunken Confessions, F/M, Gilbert's a bit of a himbo, In Vino Veritas, Just needed to clear my brain, Sort Of, bed sharing, no beta we die like men, they're both so in love, ¿Que pasa Mufasa?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:13:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24795982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ohmygodnighttroll/pseuds/Electric-amp, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ohmygodnighttroll/pseuds/Ohmygodnighttroll
Summary: Gilbert goes to a party. Anne gets a drunk dial phone call. This can only lead to disaster or hilarity.**CHAPTER 2–THE BEAVER INCIDENT NOW UP**
Relationships: Gilbert Blythe/Anne Shirley
Comments: 22
Kudos: 128





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> *Pulls out permit* This says I can do what I want.
> 
> CW: The first chapter of this fic includes description and mention of vomit. If that makes you uncomfortable, please skip the first half of Chapter 1

Anne jumped at the sensation of her phone vibrating in the pocket of her jeans. Groaning, she checked the caller id before answering. After the turn her night had taken, the last thing she needed was one of her friends drunk dialing her and making her feel worse. She had almost immediately regretted accepting Roy’s invitation to dinner, and then once he began his impassioned speech about his ‘plans for their future,’ it was all Anne could do not to throw her water at him as she told him in no uncertain terms that he had absolutely zero chance at a future with her. 

The phone’s incessant buzzing drew her attention back to it, finally forcing her to answer. It was Cole; she still didn’t know him that well yet, even after all Diana had told her about him and having dinner with him and Diana at Josephine Barry’s. She knew his type though, and he was the kind of person who would never call, even if he had made a complete fool of himself, unless it was an emergency.

“Cole MacKenzie, I love you, but somebody had better be dying.” She growled into the phone. She had been told when she dropped Cole and Diana off at Ruby’s party that there would be a designated driver, and that there would be responsible drinking—they were having wine coolers for goodness sake; but the latter statement had seemed laughable even when she had heard it.

Cole hiccuped on the other end of the line. “Nobody is dead per se, but Gilbert—”

“What about Gilbert?” Anne snapped, annoyed that she was still getting called whenever Gilbert decided to overdo it, even though they had not dated since high school. She also couldn’t keep herself from being worried. Gilbert did not overdo things often, but when he did the fall out was spectacular. For as in control as he was ninety-seven percent of the time, it was that three percent that caused her to worry. Every time she received one of these phone calls, she always dreaded that this would be the one where he had gone too far. “Is he okay?”

“He is pretty wasted; he made out with Ruby then passed out in the bathroom.” Cole’s voice sounded panicked and harsh; like despite how much he liked Gilbert as a person, he was judging him. Anne had to admit, after hearing that, she was judging Gilbert too.

“Why are you calling me? I thought you said Moody was the DD for tonight.” She replied sharply, “I mean I hate to sound like a bitch here, but I was kinda on a date; in case you forgot.”

“I didn’t forget and don’t think you’re getting out of telling me all about it, but Moody kind of has his hands full trying to make sure the rest of the guests get home. Everybody here is pretty gone; and I don’t want to leave Gilbert in Moody’s hands: he and Gilbert are supposed to be best friends and Gilbert just made out with Moody’s on-again off-again.”

“And are they on-again right now?” Anne was really starting to worry now; she knew too well the repercussions that came when you were accused of cheating, and drunk or no, Gilbert had really stepped in it this time.

“They’re off at the moment, but that doesn’t mean Moody wouldn’t still try to do something about it.” 

Anne groaned again and fished in her purse for her keys. “Okay, I’ll be there in about half an hour. Try to wake him up and get some water into him, but don’t try to move him until I get there.”

“Thanks Anne, sorry about ruining your date.”

“Don’t worry about it, it kind of ruined itself, but don’t think that fact gets you out of making this up to me somehow.” 

Anne hung up and clicked the unlock button on her keyfob before sliding into her car. Leave it to Gilbert to get trashed, make out with the Designated Driver’s girlfriend and then pass out in the bathroom. As she drove her way across town Anne contemplated how differently her night had gone from what she had initially planned. Even if her date with Roy hadn’t been an unmitigated disaster she had had zero intention of returning to Ruby’s tonight let alone to play tipsy taxi for Cole, Diana, and Gilbert. She sighed, if there was another way to get all of them out of there she would do it in a heartbeat, but after everything she and Gilbert had endured together—from their breakup to the deaths of their respective parents mere years after each other—Gilbert was still her best friend, and the first person she would call if their roles were reversed. She had to make sure he was okay.

  
  


The basement of Ruby’s house was completely destroyed. Empty bottles of wine coolers, red Solo cups, and bottles of every kind of hard liquor imaginable littered all available surfaces. A few people lingered in the basement; either passed out or still partying. Anne couldn’t help feel a surge of unwarranted disgust. She had seen some intense parties before, but this was a whole new level. She watched Moody as he shuffled in and out every thirty minutes or so, each time taking a different inebriated partygoer and ushering them to his car. After negotiating with Josie Pye to point her in the direction of the bathroom, she found Cole and Gilbert. 

Cole had Gilbert propped up against the toilet, and was alternating with a bottle of water, which Gilbert sipped at clumsily-- occasionally spilling down his front, and a wet cloth which Cole dabbed across Gilbert’s sweaty forehead. 

“Having fun?” Anne asked as she approached. 

“Oh loads,” Cole replied sourly. “He made out with one of my friends and then threw up on my boots!” He looked down at his feet and sighed, “They’re Saint Laurent; I spent 3 months’ allowance on these.”

“I wanna know how much your allowance is if you only had to save up for three months,” Anne said in surprise. Cole waved her question off. 

“I know the head of the costume department,” she offered encouragingly, “I’ll see if she knows anything that will get vomit out without ruining them.”

Gilbert belched and giggled, staring up at Anne and Cole. 

“Cole!” he cried, a small trickle of drool forming at the corner of his mouth, “Hehe, have you ever ever noticed that—heh I forgot what I was going to—” he burped again and wiped his mouth. 

“Ew. Heyyyy Anne!” he yelled, noticing her for the first time, “ Weren’t you supposed to be on a date with Roy tonight? Did he take you to the place? Did it work? I told him, I told him it would work. Anne and Roy sitting in a tree— hey Anne,” 

Gilbert had what little attention span he had left pinpointed on Anne, all the laughter draining out of his eyes. 

“Anne, your eyes are so green.” He stopped just before a stream of vomit escaped his mouth and splattered all over the floor. 

Anne and Cole managed to make it out of the range of Gilbert’s barf before it ruined anybody else’s shoes. While Cole looked like he was about to be sick himself, Anne just gave a frustrated laugh, took the cloth, which Cole had been using to mop Gilbert’s forehead and began to wipe his mouth. 

“Feeling better, Drunkzilla?” she asked affectionately.

“No,” Gilbert replied, no longer giggly and cheerful.

“Are you done, or should I wait here until your liver has stopped waging war on you?”

“No,” Gilbert groaned, attempting poorly to stand. “The smell.”

“Yes Sweetie, that’s what happens when you get drunk.” Anne grabbed him under the elbows and hoisted him, shakily to his feet. “Now, c’mon, let’s get you outta here.” 

She draped one of Gilbert’s arms around her shoulders and motioned for Cole to do the same on his other side. 

“What do you want me to do?” Diana asked, making her first appearance of the night. Though she looked to be particularly tipsy herself, her desire to help was currently winning out over her desire to curl up on the nearest comfortable surface and fall asleep. Anne reached over to Diana and placed a small kiss on the top of her head.

“Get a couple bottles of water and a bucket we can have for the car ride,” Anne replied. “Then make sure we don’t hit anything on our way up.”

Getting Gilbert up the stairs of Ruby’s house was the easy part; getting him in Anne’s Jeep and buckled in was a little trickier. After getting him buckled in once, Anne walked up to the front seat to help Cole get in. By the time she had opened the door Gilbert had unbuckled himself and was halfway back inside the house. It finally took Anne and Cole holding Gilbert down while Diana fastened the seatbelt, and all but sitting on him to get Gilbert to stay put.

“I don’t want to try and get him into the dorm like this,” Cole said once they were on the road. “Charlie would kill us.” 

Anne nodded in agreement. While Anne had only met the RA of their dorm hall a couple of times, she knew Charlie had just returned back from his second round to the hospital. Anne shuddered as she remembered the last time she had been to Windsor Hall, somebody had snuck a live beaver into the building, which had preceded Charlie’s first visit to the hospital after the animal had tried to take a chunk out of his leg. She did not need to incur his wrath tonight.

“Let’s take him to my apartment, and then I can bring him back to campus with me tomorrow night.” Anne offered. 

Cole and Diana agreed and Anne turned off to take them both to Diana’s where Cole could crash on the couch.

“What I want to know is, how the hell did he get so drunk? You guys were only supposed to be having wine coolers. Those things have a 4% alcohol content! Unless he has the tolerance of a three year old; there is no way he could have gotten that drunk off wine coolers alone.”

“It was only supposed to be wine coolers.” Diana explained, “but Billy Andrews and Josie Pye decided that was lame so Billy busted the lock on Ruby’s dad’s liquor cabinet and everyone just kinda went to town.”

“I see,” Anne replied crossly.

“It was awesome.” Gilbert murmured from the back seat.

“Aw _ful_ , Gil,” corrected Anne, “the word you are looking for is awful.” Gilbert laughed for a moment before it was replaced by soft snoring.

Anne let out a gloomy sort of laugh, “Of all the things he could get up to while drunk, I can honestly say I never expected him to be the kind of guy to drunkenly make out with someone’s girlfriend.”

“I mean to be fair, Moody and Ruby aren’t technically together at the moment, but yeah I get what you’re saying. That’s a bit of a low there.”

Anne chuckled darkly, trying her best to focus on the road ahead to keep the tears from spilling from her eyes.

Cole leaned over, his attention now focused solely on Anne. “I take it this is about more than me calling during your date.”

“Is it wrong for me to feel jealous when we aren’t even dating?” Anne sighed. “We’ve been broken up for years, and yet every time I think about him with another girl, my heart feels like its going to drop out of my ass.”

Cole considered Anne’s confession for a moment, his hand reaching out to squeeze hers before he spoke. “I don’t think it’s wrong; I have seen you two together and I know Gilbert. He likes you, but after that whole thing with Winnie blowing up in his face, and then he’s been trying to be supportive of you and Roy-- he’s so scared of making an ass of himself.” 

Diana laughed, her voice leaked derision, “Seems funny, though doesn’t it? Taking that into consideration while looking at the state he’s in now?”

They all glanced to where Gilbert was now curled up into the fetal position, his body straining against the seat belt. His head was in Diana’s lap, and a small rope of drool hung from the corner of his mouth.

“Typical,” Anne laughed with a shake of her head. 

“I take it this isn’t the worst state you’ve seen him in?” Cole guessed.

“Let’s just say your shoes are not the first to fall victim to Gilbert’s vomit comet.”

After dropping off Cole and Diana, Anne finally made it back to her apartment. She fumbled with her key card a moment before swiping it in front of the reader, causing the door to swing open. Hoisting Gilbert’s arm back over her shoulders, she waved to the doorman and all but carried Gilbert over to the elevator.

“Evening Ms Cuthbert,” the doorman said warily. He was surprised at the ease that Anne was handling the young man she was with. True, he probably wasn’t any heavier than 175 pounds, but 175 pounds of dead weight would still seem heavy especially given the size discrepancy between the two. 

“Evening Frank,”Anne groaned under Gilbert’s weight, she may not have been drunk, but she was still tired and Gilbert was at least twice her size. The elevator finally arrived and Anne got them both inside and pressed the button for her floor.

By the time the elevator was at Anne’s floor, Gilbert was semi-conscious and singing very badly at the top of his lungs. 

“Anne, what’s going on Sweetheart?” Anne’s neighbor Mrs. Hudson was standing in the hall in a floral nightgown watching Anne drag Gilbert to her apartment with a dazed expression. 

“It’s fine Mrs. Hudson, I’m having a friend stay over, we’ll be out of your hair in a few minutes.” Anne assured her. “He’s a little drunk, and so I figured it’d be better for him to crash on my couch tonight instead of facing the wrath of his RA.”

Gilbert stopped his tonedeaf aria at the mention of Charlie and shuddered. “Charlie. Mean. Do not want.”

Mrs. Hudson stared at them a moment longer before shrugging her shoulders.

“Okay. Goodnight Sweetie.” She mumbled before turning around and walking back into her apartment.

Anne opened the door to her apartment and ushered Gilbert in. She managed to get him to sit still long enough to get a toothbrush into his hand and rub it haphazardly across his teeth. She took him to her room and flopped Gilbert down onto the bed. Making sure he wouldn’t roll off the edge, Anne removed his shoes and tucked him in. Gilbert’s eyes fluttered closed nearly the minute his head hit the pillow, his body snuggling down into the mattress. Smiling to herself, she kissed Gilbert’s feverish forehead and stepped back.

“Night Drunkzilla.” Turning around, she grabbed a bottle of aspirin and set it on the nightstand. She then went to the kitchen and filled two glasses: one with water and the other with Gatorade, which she took back to her room and set next to the aspirin. 

As she was getting herself ready for bed, she heard Gilbert stirring from the bed. 

“How did I get here?” he murmured, the sound of his voice was low and gruff, and slightly muffled from where his cheek was buried into the pillow.

“You mean you don’t remember me showing up on a winged steed like a Valkyrie out of Norse Mythology to rescue you from your own drunken shame?”

“See, you say that like a joke,” he said, “but for all I know that could be exactly what happened.”

“All I’m going to say is that you better hope my girl Stella can get vomit out of suede. Otherwise you might owe Cole something like a thousand dollars.” 

Gilbert groaned at the mention of vomit, and Anne was at his side in three quick strides, holding a bucket out for him. He waved her off. 

“‘M fine,” he said though his tone was not reassuring. “As long as I don’t move.”

Anne scoffed and climbed in on the other side of the bed. She settled into her pillows and felt Gilbert closing the distance between them. His hands reached out and drew her to him, so her back was flush with his chest.

“If you throw up on me, I will murder you.” 

Gilbert laughed, his breath hot against the back of her neck. The weight of his arm over her waist made her feel safe in a way she hadn’t felt since the death of her parents. She supposed one could argue that being the “little spoon” always made you feel safe, but among the people she had dated—granted the number was small—Anne had never felt as comfortable or completely at home in the arms of any person like she did in the arms of Gilbert Blythe.

“What happened, Anne-girl?” 

“You know for a pre-med student, you’re failing hard on this ‘how alcohol affects the brain’ pop quiz.”

“No, I know that, Anne.” Gilbert sighed, his arms tucking her in a little tighter. “I mean what happened to us?” 

The question hit Anne like a Mack Truck. She knew he would ask it sooner or later, but if she was being honest with herself, she never expected it to come while Gilbert was drunk in her bed. She had lost count of the hours she had devoted to this question herself. 

“I don’t get it,” he continued, “It’s not as if we don’t love each other.”

“No,” Anne agreed. “The problem was never about us not loving each other.”

“So then what was it?”

“I don’t know Gil,” She admitted. “The more I think back to it, the less sense it makes, but at the time, I was so sure that it was the right thing to do.”

Gilbert breathed softly behind her, but didn’t respond. Whether it was because Anne thought he was asleep, or maybe because she was finally ready to say it, she continued on. 

“Do you remember how in grade 10 we read Much Ado About Nothing? And how Beatrice and Benedick were so sure that they hated each other up until the point that their friends and family started pushing them together? Nobody ever argued that they weren’t in love. Even once it was laid out in front them, Beatrice and Benedick knew it too. But instead of being able to come together in their own time, their relationship was fast-tracked by the manipulations of the people around them. And no matter how much I loved you, no matter how much I still love you, I felt like I was robbed of figuring that out for myself.

“And then your dad died, and you went to Newfoundland to work on a fishing boat for two years. And when you came back, my parents were dying. And I couldn’t deal with losing them, and how I felt about you. Now here we are, four years later and I still love you, but I’m preparing myself for a career, and you’re studying to be a doctor. Neither of us are in a place where we can consider a relationship. Or at least I can’t.

“So I let you go, because part of me believed it was easier to break our hearts than to have live up to everyone’s expectation of us as some sort of power couple. I didn’t even blame you for wanting to try and move on and find someone else. I couldn’t expect you to be celibate and wait for me while I figured my shit out, and I think if the roles were reversed that the sentiment would be the same.”

“What if I never love anybody else the way I love you?”

Anne choked back a sob, tears spilling forth from her eyes, and she silently thanked God that she wasn’t facing him at that moment, while praying that he would forget about this come morning. She knew in her heart that there would never be anyone else for her, but Gilbert had a future full of options ahead, and all of them were exceedingly more exciting and promising than a future with her. But here he was, asking the same question that had weighed on her heart for four years. She linked her fingers with his and rested their joined hands close to her chest. If tomorrow they had to go back to normal and Gilbert forgot this ever happened, then she would savour this small amount of intimacy she was allowed.

“I don’t know Gilbert.”

She waited for him to say anything, but when the only response she received was the evened breaths of sleep, she closed her eyes and willed herself to follow suit.

  
  



	2. The Beaver Incident

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How the hell did a beaver get into Gilbert’s dorm? 
> 
> Loosely based off of true events

“There’s no way.” 

The boys from the sixth floor of Windsor Hall could scarcely believe it. Trevor their resident accounting major had gone through the receipts four times, and each time had yielded the same result: in the Great Grilled Cheese-off of 2016, the girls from the fourth floor of Cleeves Hall had won by a wide margin. 

Moody shifted nervously in his seat, eyeing the pile of receipts on the table. “Maybe you could count them again.”

“To what end?” Cole grabbed the can of Coke in front of him and pulled the top open with a satisfying crack. “Do you really think a fifth recount will change the outcome?” 

Gilbert looked around at his dorm mates. When they had come up with the idea of which dorm could eat the most grilled cheese sandwiches, absolutely none of them had expected the girls to win. The girls of the fourth floor of Cleeves looked on smugly, reveling in their victory. 

Some of the boys were still rifling through the receipts, hoping in vain to find an outcome different than the one they’d been given. 

“Wait a minute!” Gilbert peered closely at a few of the receipts, “some of the girls added meat to their sandwiches!” 

He spread them out on the table. “Ham, turkey, bacon. If you add meat to it, then it’s not grilled cheese, it’s a panini!”

Anne, who was technically a commuter, but due to her close friendships with the girls in Cleeves had been included in the competition, jumped at the opportunity to debate. She loved to argue, and hated to lose.

“You make a valid point,” she said, “but it should have been brought up before the competition began. You can’t contest it now.”

“No, these ones shouldn’t count,” Gilbert asserted while a few of his dorm mates murmured their agreement.

“The only established rules when we began this competition were no more than one grilled cheese per meal, but at least one per day!” Anne countered, her face flushing a shade of pink that Gilbert personally found enchanting. Not that he would ever admit it to her, especially now when she had engaged him into this argument.  
“Furthermore, if we want to get technical, all grilled cheeses are paninis!”

“But not all paninis are grilled cheese!” 

“But that still doesn’t matter since we didn’t establish that paninis were off limits when the competition began!”

They were standing nose to nose, each of them breathing heavily. Anne stared at him as if her eyes could bore holes into his skull, and Gilbert couldn’t tell if she wanted to kiss him or set him on fire. The urge to kiss her was almost too much for him to bear, and he knew that if he stood there for a moment longer he wouldn’t be able to hold back.

“Thomas, Pris: a ruling please.” 

Priscilla Grant’s eyes flicked back and forth between Anne and Gilbert like she was watching a tennis match, seemingly more amused in their argument than the outcome of the competition. Thomas Green looked at the pair, then looked again at the receipts, and then once more at Anne and Gilbert. As the resident pre-law students for their respective floors, it had been decided that Thomas and Priscilla would have the final day over any disputes. They put their heads together to deliberate.

As they whispered, Gilbert and Anne took measured steps apart, unable to break away from each other’s gaze. This wasn’t the first time one of their arguments had gotten overly passionate. It wasn’t even the first time the subject matter was something as inconsequential as what did or didn’t constitute a grilled cheese. They had been broken up for nearly two years, and Gilbert still had more fun arguing with Anne than he did having a conversation of any kind with anyone else.

Thomas and Pris cleared their throats, signalling they had come to a mutual decision.

“We’ll allow the paninis.” they announced.

The girls of Cleeves cheered while the Windsor boys groaned at their demise. Gilbert braved to glance in Anne’s direction one more time and just long enough for him to accept his defeat with a slight bow of his head. 

“Now that all of that is out of the way, I believe it’s time to devise the perfect punishment for the losers.” Tillie and Jane rubbed their hands together, no doubt thinking of something truly  
devious for the boys to take part in. 

Their mission was to obtain an animal and see how long they could keep it in the dorm before the RA noticed. The Windsor boys collectively winced; Charlie Sloane was not a bad RA, in fact he was probably one of the best RAs in recent history by U of T standards. The thing with Charlie though was that he was astonishingly difficult to fool, freak out, or fluster. He was the type of RA who had seen just about everything freshman students had to offer, and therefore was rarely fazed when something went awry. 

Two days after the end of the grilled cheese-off, the boys gathered in Cole and Gilbert’s room to discuss how they were going to pull off this feat. Gilbert shuffled and dealt out a deck of cards, trying to give them as much plausible deniability as possible. 

“As long as we get something small and quiet, I think we could get away with it.” Cole set down a card, and directed Moody to take a turn. Moody looked at his hand glumly, then took a long pull from his bottle, which Gilbert was no longer convinced was filled with water. Ever since he and Ruby had broken up for what was probably the third time this semester, Moody’s disposition had become rather sour.

“I know a guy who could hook us up with a ferret,” Offered Paul Lehman, but this idea was shot down with a chorus of nos from the others.

“Ferrets smell, you think Charlie isn’t going to be suspicious if one of our rooms starts smelling like ass?” 

“You take that back, ferrets are adorable!” 

The boys argued for quite some time, and Gilbert feared they would never come to a consensus. Then without prompt or warning, Moody stood up, drained his bottle, and left the room announcing that he would be back.

Nobody ever found out how Moody Spurgeon was able to wrangle a live and fully grown beaver into Windsor Hall, and when asked Moody himself couldn’t remember how he’d done it. Whether it was the alcohol, sheer nerve, or a combination of the two, Moody returned with a beaver in his arms and hid him in the ceiling tiles of his room,with Gilbert, Cole,and a few others looking on in astonishment. 

It was another three days before all hell broke loose. Gilbert and Anne had been walking back to Windsor from a biology lab when they saw Moody, Paul, Cole, and Thomas dressed in hockey pads each standing on a piece of furniture looking absolutely terrified. 

“Dagget got loose.” Moody offered up as an explanation. 

“Oh shit.” Gilbert breathed. 

“Who’s Dagget?” 

None of the boys answer Anne’s question, but spring into action when a mass of brown fur streaks out from one of the sofas and tears down the hall. Moody and Paul chase after the thing, while Cole and Thomas pile furniture in front of the lounge entrance in hopes of cutting off its ability to hide.

Anne grabs Gilbert’s arm in a vice grip and turns him to face her. 

“Gilbert John Blythe, what the hell is going on?”

Gilbert explained how Dagget came to be in Windsor Hall, and how they had been trying to keep him off of Charlie’s radar. All the while they paced the hall, Gilbert armed with a hockey stick and Anne with the hairbrush she had taken from her bag.

“This is by far the dumbest thing you have done, and let’s be clear, you have done a lot of dumb things!” Anne shook her head, annoyed at the sheer magnitude of the boys’ collective stupidity. 

“You can yell at me later, for now—”

But whatever Gilbert was about to say died on his lips as a bloodcurdling shout rang out from down the hall. All of the colour drained from his face as he and Anne took off in the direction of the shout. 

What they found was Charlie lying in a heap outside of his door, moaning in pain with a sizeable gash in his leg.

“Why the fuck is there a beaver in the dorms?” he asked through gritted teeth.

Gilbert immediately set to work, staying the blood flow from Charlie’s wound and cleaning it. As he worked, he tried in vain to explain the full story to Charlie, which only served to make him angrier. By the time the paramedics have come to take Charlie to the hospital, three more of the residents were sporting nasty looking bites or scratches from Dagget, the angry beaver, who had yet to be caught. Charlie was wheeled away on a stretcher, spewing profanities and vowing a swift and just punishment upon his return. 

Anne helped Gilbert clean up the aftermath while maintenance men from the university scoured the building for Dagget. Gilbert could tell she was trying her hardest to keep from laughing, especially with the knowledge that people had been hurt, but she was unfortunately terrible at it. 

One look at each other, and suddenly the two were rolling on the floor, bodies shaking with laughter. 

“You know when we told you guys to keep an animal here, we thought you would get a goldfish or a turtle or something!” 

“Well we weren’t given much of an option! Moody just went out and when he came back, there was a beaver!” Gibert was doubled over in the fetal position, tears streaming down his face.

“There are so many things wrong with that sentence, I don’t even know where to begin!” Anne laid on her back, one hand on her stomach, which had to be aching from the force of her laughter, and the other reached out towards Gilbert. He grabbed Anne’s hand and gave it a squeeze. 

Gilbert tried to ignore the way his heart somersaulted at Anne’s touch. No matter how many years they had been broken up, He still felt the force of Anne’s presence in his life pulling him to her like a magnet. It amazed him that across the span of time and distance they had always found their way back together, though not always romantically. If Anne was the sun, then he was a satellite; forever willfully bound into her orbit. 

She stayed staring at him for only a moment longer, then planted her hands on either side of her body and pushed herself into the standing position. 

“Good luck with your beaver problem.” she said, reaching down to give him a hand up, “I’ve got a paper that isn’t going to write itself.” 

Gilbert sprang to his feet, dusting his hands off on his pants. “Wanna get dinner later?” 

Anne looked back over her shoulder with a smile, and Gilbert swore his heart stopped for a moment. “Pick me up from the library at 7:30.” 

Gilbert grinned, knowing that he would follow her into the fires of hell and all she had to do was ask

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this incident is loosely based off of two separate events I experienced in university. 
> 
> I was not present for the actual capture of the beaver, but according to my friend at least 4 people were bit and had to have subsequent rabies shots.


End file.
